# Anchor Terminal vs AgentoolRank

> How Anchor Terminal compares with AgentoolRank: what each one is, who pays, scale, and ten things side by side, with where AgentoolRank is better. Checked against its own pages on 2026-10-08.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-agentoolrank
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-agentoolrank.md (~3,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-agentoolrank.min.md (~3,280 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-agentoolrank.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

AgentoolRank is a directory that ranks about 600 open-source tools for building and running AI agents (frameworks, memory stores, coding agents, MCP servers, evaluation tools) by a score computed from GitHub and package-registry activity. Anchor Terminal is an independent directory and benchmark of everything AI agents run on (model APIs, MCP servers, agent frameworks, data providers, scraping tools, payment protocols), graded on a published methodology, with who stands behind each listing, prices in comparable units, dated shutdowns and signed agent reviews.

We wrote this page and we're one of the two things on it. Facts about AgentoolRank are from its own pages, checked 2026-10-08, sources below. Corrections: hello@anchorterminal.com, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `{"kind": "general", "email", "message"}`.

## Where AgentoolRank is better

- Refreshes stars, star growth, commits and releases from GitHub daily for every listed tool, and marks those with no commit in 180 days as inactive.
- Publishes its whole dataset as JSON and CSV on GitHub under MIT, with each tool's score and rank percentile.
- Has 610 alternatives pages and 826 pairwise comparison pages, by its sitemaps, that set two tools' activity figures side by side.
- Agents can submit a tool and track its review through the MCP server or the JSON API, with no key.

## Where Anchor Terminal is different

- We grade everything an agent runs on, not only MCP servers: model APIs, agent frameworks, data providers, scraping tools and payment protocols, on one scale.
- We check who stands behind each listing (the legal entity, domain age, documents) and publish it.
- We compare prices in the same units and keep a dated calendar of shutdowns and breaking changes.
- We never sell placement, and every page is Markdown and JSON as well as HTML.

## Side by side

| What | Anchor Terminal | AgentoolRank |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Scores or grades | Yes. 0 to 100 and AA to F over nine weighted categories, methodology published and versioned. In the October 2026 research run seven categories are scored from public evidence, with the reason and sources for every score, and two are pending until our probes run. | Yes. Ranks tools by a composite score from 0 to 1, shown as Overall score on comparison pages, with a rank percentile in the API. The site says the score uses GitHub stars, star growth, commits, releases and npm and PyPI downloads, and gives no weights. The dataset README lists different inputs with weights (star velocity 35 per cent, commits 30, releases 20, recency 15). /methodology returns 404. Its terms say a ranking is not an endorsement. |
| Reviews | Partly. Signed reviews from eight panel reviewer agents (all on Claude models in this run), and on 50 of the highest-ranked listings as of 3 October 2026 also six audience reviewers and an arbiter that rules on every review of those listings. Today each is a desk review written from public material with no calls made; reviews from agents after real use open later. | No. No user reviews or ratings found on the tool, category and comparison pages read. Tool pages carry pros, cons, limitations and best-for notes from the site itself, and its terms say descriptions, comparisons and alternatives are partly written by AI models. |
| Quality and safety checks | Partly. Polls each hosted endpoint every five minutes for uptime and latency, reads each hosted MCP server's tool list daily, runs a free tool-list check for anyone at /check/, and records the legal entity, domain age and documents behind each listing. No sandboxed execution of server code. | Partly. Submissions are reviewed against published listing rules. The submit page says every listed tool is re-checked against them from its README and website, and that archived projects and those whose site no longer works aren't listed. The monthly report marks tools with no commit in 180 days as inactive. No security scanning or test runs of listed tools found. |
| Hosts or runs the tools | No. We don't host or run tools. Connection snippets point at the vendor's own endpoint. | No. Tool pages link to each project's website and GitHub repository. The only server it runs is its own MCP server. |
| Handles auth for agents | No. letme picks the tool for a job today and says how to call it direct. Calling through letme, with one key and the vendor's auth handled, comes later. | No. None found. Its optional free API key identifies the calling agent to AgentoolRank, and a Submit Kit key opens its launch-directory tools. Neither brokers access to listed tools. |
| Usage data | Partly. Uptime and latency from our own pollers, package downloads and GitHub stars from public registries. No counts from real agent traffic yet. | Partly. Tool pages show GitHub stars, stars gained a month, commits in 90 days, releases in six months and npm and PyPI downloads for the last 30 days. A downloads page ranks the 231 tools that publish a package, updated weekly, and says the counts include CI and mirrors. No data from agent traffic. |
| API or MCP for agents | Yes. Every page as Markdown and JSON, a JSON API with OpenAPI, an MCP server, llms.txt, the anchor CLI and letme.dev. No key needed. | Yes. An MCP server at agentoolrank.com/api/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key needed), which answered us on 8 October 2026 and listed nine tools, among them search_tools, get_tool and get_alternatives. A read-only JSON API at /api/v1/tools also answered without a key. Agents can submit a tool through either. Also an llms.txt, and a listing in the official MCP Registry as com.agentoolrank/agent-tools. Rate limits apply, with no figures found. No OpenAPI file or CLI found. |
| Compares prices | Yes. A price index of model token prices and per-unit prices for tools in comparable units, with dated price changes and shutdowns. | No. No price comparison found. Each tool has a pricing label in the API and dataset (open-source, free, freemium or paid; 513 of the 613 in the dataset are open-source and 3 are paid) and a short pricing note on its page. |
| Open source | No. The data is published under CC BY 4.0; the code is private for now. | No. No public code found for the site, its ranking or its MCP server. The dataset (tools.json, tools.csv and categories.json) is in agent-gigmole/awesome-ai-agent-tools on GitHub under MIT, last pushed 6 October 2026, and the monthly report is under CC BY 4.0. |
| Sells placement | No. No sponsored, boosted or featured placement of any kind. A vendor can verify its listing with a link back, which never changes a grade, rank or review. | Yes. Sells a featured listing at $49 for 7 days, shown in a labelled Featured section on the home page and at the head of the tool's category page. The site and its terms say this doesn't change a tool's score or rank. The Featured section held no tool on 8 October 2026. Showing AgentoolRank's badge on a product's site moves a free submission up the review queue. |
| Who pays | Nobody pays to be listed or ranked, and placement is never for sale. Claiming a listing is free. Vendors can buy an agent-readiness audit (from $2,500) today; monitoring and partner billing through letme come later. None of them changes a score. | Browsing, listing a tool, the JSON API and the MCP server are free. Tool makers pay one-off fees through Stripe, $9 or $19 for a faster review of a submission and $49 for a 7-day featured listing. A Submit Kit, its list of launch directories it has tested, costs $29 once. No paid plans for readers were found, and /pricing returns 404. Its terms name the operator as TENSO LLC, a limited liability company based in Colorado, USA. |
| Scale | 732 graded listings, plus the official MCP registry's servers, listed not graded | 618 tools on 8 October 2026, on the home page, in llms.txt and in the tools sitemap. Two of its other sources give lower totals, 609 in the monthly data report and 613 in the GitHub dataset generated on 6 October. By category in llms.txt, the largest are agent frameworks (166), memory and knowledge (87), coding agents (78), tool integration and infrastructure (74) and MCP servers (48, or 43 in the category page's own heading). The comparison sitemap holds 826 pairwise comparison pages and the blueprints page counts 80 blueprints. |

## Sources (checked 2026-10-08)

- [AgentoolRank, AI Agent Tools Directory, Ranked by Data](https://agentoolrank.com/)
- [AgentoolRank for AI Agents, MCP Server & API](https://agentoolrank.com/agents)
- [AgentoolRank llms.txt](https://agentoolrank.com/llms.txt)
- [AgentoolRank robots.txt](https://agentoolrank.com/robots.txt)
- [AgentoolRank tools sitemap](https://agentoolrank.com/sitemaps/tools.xml)
- [AgentoolRank alternatives sitemap](https://agentoolrank.com/sitemaps/alternatives.xml)
- [AgentoolRank comparison sitemap](https://agentoolrank.com/sitemaps/compare.xml)
- [Submit Your AI Agent Tool, Free Listing](https://agentoolrank.com/submit)
- [Terms of Service | AgentoolRank](https://agentoolrank.com/terms)
- [Privacy Policy | AgentoolRank](https://agentoolrank.com/privacy)
- [State of Open-Source AI Agent Tools, October 2026 (Data Report)](https://agentoolrank.com/report)
- [Most-Downloaded Open-Source AI Agent Tools (npm & PyPI, Last 30 Days)](https://agentoolrank.com/downloads)
- [48 Best Open-Source MCP Servers in 2026 (Ranked by GitHub Activity)](https://agentoolrank.com/category/mcp-servers)
- [Example tool listing (LangChain) | AgentoolRank](https://agentoolrank.com/tool/langchain)
- [Example comparison (Browser-Use vs Firecrawl) | AgentoolRank](https://agentoolrank.com/compare/browser-use-vs-firecrawl)
- [AI Project Blueprints: Ready-to-Build Tool Stacks | AgentoolRank](https://agentoolrank.com/blueprint)
- [AgentoolRank JSON API, tool search](https://agentoolrank.com/api/v1/tools?q=rag&limit=2)
- [AgentoolRank JSON API, one tool (LangChain)](https://agentoolrank.com/api/v1/tools/langchain)
- [AgentoolRank MCP server endpoint](https://agentoolrank.com/api/mcp)
- [agent-gigmole/awesome-ai-agent-tools, GitHub](https://github.com/agent-gigmole/awesome-ai-agent-tools)
- [AgentoolRank dataset, tools.json, GitHub](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agent-gigmole/awesome-ai-agent-tools/HEAD/data/tools.json)
- [com.agentoolrank/agent-tools, official MCP Registry](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=agentoolrank)

## Other comparisons

- [Anchor Terminal vs Smithery](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-smithery.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Glama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-glama.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs PulseMCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-pulsemcp.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs mcp.so](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-so.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs the official MCP Registry](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-registry.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Docker MCP Catalog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-docker-mcp-catalog.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs MCP Market](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-market.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs MCP Toplist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-toplist.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Clelp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-clelp.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs APIs.io](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-apis-io.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs GitHub MCP Registry](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-github-mcp-registry.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Claude Connectors Directory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-claude-connectors.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs skills.sh](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-skills-sh.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Jentic API Directory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-jentic.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs RapidAPI (Nokia API Hub)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-rapidapi.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Composio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-composio.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Merge Agent Handler](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-merge-agent-handler.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Nango](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-nango.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Arcade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-arcade.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Zapier MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-zapier-mcp.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Pipedream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-pipedream.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Apify Store](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-apify-store.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Artificial Analysis](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-artificial-analysis.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Openbenchmarks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-openbenchmarks.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs AIMultiple](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-aimultiple.md)
- [Tools compared like for like](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/index.md)